


To the River

by MooseFeels



Series: Turn Me On [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Biting, Domestic, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Marking, Omega Castiel, Scent Marking, Scents & Smells, Self Lubrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 12:12:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their life, rebuilt, together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Castiel goes out to the woods one afternoon in the fall. He heads out with a can of spray paint.

He’s been looking for it, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t find it. He knows what it’s supposed to be- it’s supposed to be huge and fragrant. It has to have already fallen. Castiel can’t kill a tree doing this. It has to have already occurred.

He looks up at the big trees and he tromps out, his legs strong and sturdy under his body. He’s out there all afternoon, the sun warm but distant. The breeze cold. His skin tight with the feeling of it.

He feels full. He still feels sad sometimes, broken even, but he doesn’t feel empty. He doesn’t feel like his body and soul have been deconstructed anymore. He doesn’t feel like the vital part of him has been stripped away.

Between Gabriel’s legal pad and Dean’s kisses, Castiel has finally come to view himself as more than a womb.

He’s been out there about twenty minutes when he see it- his tree.

It was a cedar. The geometric bark of it red-brown. The fall came not too long ago, and while the foliage has dried, the wood hasn’t turned grey. Castiel looks at the thing and nods his approval.

He sprays three broad stripes of blue paint across the trunk of the tree. He heads back off towards the house.

Sam’s huge white truck is parked out front. He and Jess are up for the weekend. Baby Mary is with Jess’s family in Chicago, and Castiel tries to figure out how to thank them for their grace. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it’s hard to be around kids for a long time, still.

The house is warm and inviting with Sam and Jess and Dean. Dean’s talking again. He’s still contemplative and quiet, but he talks and he laughs and he smiles and he eats, thank god. He lost so much weight in the months right after, and he’s still a little thinner than he should be, but he’s not scary anymore. He’s not ill.

It smells like the cinnamon buns Castiel made this morning, and he throws one in the mircrowave to warm up.

“Did you find it?” Jess asks. She smiles in her crooked way- mischievous.

Castiel nods as he tears into the bun. “It’s perfect,” he answers.

She nods. “I’ll let them know.”

That’s when Castiel hears the crash, and he resists screaming, “My mugs!”

He walks into the living room, and Sam and Dean are wrestling on their carpet. Castiel clears his throat, and they look up at him like little boys.

Dean has wicked rugburn on his chin when he comes up. He looks up, sheepish. “Sorry, baby,” he murmurs.

Castiel smiles and smooths back Dean’s hair. “It’s okay puppy,” he says.

Sam gets up like the giant sheepdog he is and asks, “Did you find it? Is it there?”

Castel nods. “I marked it, too. Grab your truck and the chain. We’ve got a tree to get.”

Sam and Dean smile the same gleeful smile, and Jess shakes her head.

The drive out takes longer than the walk. The big white truck isn’t as dexterous as Castiel, and they take about an hour to get out to the tree. It’s still there, surprising no one, a treasure. Sam smiles at it. Dean kisses Castiel on the cheek.

He’s found the beginnings of their nest.

 


	2. Chapter 2

On days that Castiel doesn’t have work at the bakery, he wakes up and he works on the nest.

He’s stripped the bark and sawed the limbs off of the trunk. It would have been a big tree, when it stood- nearly forty feet tall and very, very broad. It’s an unusual shape for a tree, but it’s good for what Castiel wants to do. He looks at the naked length of it, and he sighs.

He walks back into the house, where Dean is just beginning to make breakfast- bacon and eggs and pan toast. Dean’s wearing his underwear and nothing else. He’s so pretty in the early morning. Dean is beautiful in a way other alpha’s aren’t. There’s the almost feminine curve to his lips and the innocent spray of his freckles and the beautiful and strange color of his eyes.

There’s also the curve of his ass in Castiel’s hand- that’s pretty great too.

Dean shakes his head. “You’re the worst,” he murmurs.

“You’re so pretty,” Castiel answers back.

Dean smiles, Castiel can see over Dean’s shoulder to the way his cheek curves upward. “How’s the nest coming?”

“I think I need to go to a lumber mill to get the tree made into planks,” he answers. “I’ll do it at the end of the month. It’ll be fine.”

Dean sighs. “Or we could always-”

“If you say ‘buy a bed’ one more time I will kill you in your sleep and never look back,” Castiel says. “I know you’re impatient- puppy I am too, but it’s coming, I promise.”  He nuzzles against Dean and smells that safe smell of him. “You’re a good provider, puppy, I promise.”

Dean smiles in that was that Castiel knows is misdirection. “I’ll help you figure out where to send it in the area. Teach me how to make bread again. I like the way it makes the house smell.”

Castiel smiles and starts pulling out the bowls.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel smells so good. He smells like brown sugar and pears and the cedar that he found in the woods. He smells like the shirt he stole from Dean and flour from yesterday’s shift at the bakery. He smells amazing, and Dean is happy every day that he gets that smell on his skin and clothes.

He is frustrated by how slowly the bed is coming, though.

He’s ashamed every night that they go to bed together in the big bedroom and sleep on the floor. He’s not providing in a way that’s maddening- it’s emasculating, really.Everything in his alpha programming is telling him that he’s failed and that he’s not providing, and that it means that Castiel can leave at any moment. That the home- that the pack- is insecure. It makes Dean’s muscles itch and his skin tingle.

He’s got to let Castiel make the thing, though. He’s wanted to for months, and now he’s doing it.

He’s started work on the posts and the headboard, using stout branches that he’s cleaning and carving and sealing. It’s a long process, but there’s always a little more progress, every time Dean head out to the shed where Castiel is working.

Castiel smiles at him now, though, from over the bowl of bread dough and says, “Put this in the laundry room. It’s nice and humid in there. Should rise up nicely.”

Dean nods and slings the dough into the warm space. Castiel cleans up in the kitchen a little bit.

They have some stuff in the house now. It’s not extravagant or lush by any means, but they have a bookcase and books. They have an old couch that’s falling apart and a kitchen table. A couple of posters and some pictures on the wall- the one of Castiel’s father and the one picture Dean has of his mom share a frame on the fireplace.

There’s a picture in a box in Dean’s dresser of the baby, before the miscarriage. The sonogram.

Sometimes he holds it and looks at it, and he thinks about adding it to the wall. He worries it would read as an accusation, though. That it would make it all worse.

Today is one of the days where he looks at her- this dark bean of a human that left the world too soon.

Castiel walks in and sees and gasps. He’s seen a ghost.

Dean looks at him guiltily, and he puts the picture away. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

“It’s, it’s okay,” Castiel says. His hands grasp over the loose fabric of his t-shirt. “It’s okay. Keeping it- it’s okay.” He inhales long and deep. “Your- your healing and my healing are different, and that’s okay.”

Dean bites his lip. “I- I- it’s like the photo of my mom and your dad. She’s- she’s one of mine, and she’s been lost. And- and this is what I have.”

Castiel nods, slowly. His hand loosens on his shirt. He rubs over his torso and belly. “If you want to put it up, I understand. I’ve hated that I couldn’t- that I couldn’t hold her. I didn’t have a lock of hair or the color of her eyes.” He shakes his head, as if to shake the ideas out of his body. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That doesn’t- that doesn’t-”

“It’s okay, angel,” Dean interrupts. “If you need to talk, I understand. And if you’re still upset, that’s okay. I mean-” Dean swallows, trying to prevent himself from losing the voice. “It’s hard.”

Castiel nods. “It’s easier with you,” he says.

* * *

The sonogram is taped up next to the pictures.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The planks and beautiful. Reddish and fragrant, they sit ten feet long on the shed floor and Castiel looks at them with his hands on his hips, satisfied.

He looks back and Dean and says with his surprisingly low voice, “I’m going to have to build it in the bedroom. Otherwise, we’ll never get it through the door.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Really?” he asks.

Castiel nods. “Oh yeah. This thing is gonna be a monster. I’m thinking the headboard should be seven feet tall. Do tall posts so we can canopy it in the winter. Naw, puppy, our nest? It’s gonna be the biggest, nicest nest in the whole damn state.”

Dean feels inexplicatbly warm inside at the assurance. Having the wood here in the planks is fascinatingly comforting. It looks like progress, more than the stripped branches and the pile of bark next to their firewood.

Castiel hefts a couple of planks and says, “Come on. Help me get about half these inside. I won’t use all of them for the bed, but we should hold onto them. Just in case.”

Dean nods and grabs a couple of the planks himself.

They manage to get all of them inside without breaking anything, although it came pretty close. Castiel wipes the fine sheen of sweat from his brow, leaving a trail of his scent through the air. The smell of it hits and fills Dean with desire, and he whimpers as he suddenly feels his blood change.

The moment between is suddenly charged and electric.

Castiel frowns and sniffs at his fingers experimentally and blushes. “Oh no,” he whispers. He looks up at Dean. “I haven’t had my heat since the miscarriage,” he murmurs. “I- uh- I might be close. I can- I can go stay with Gabriel or-”

Dean pulls at the collar of shirt. He suddenly feels like he’s boiling inside of his own body. It occurs to him distantly that he hasn’t had a rut in a while, and that this- this feels as intense as his first one, if not more so. “I-I-I,” Dean says, trying to string any kind of coherent sentence together, “I want. Want you. Want me?”

Castiel looks thunderstruck. It’s the first time either of them has initiated something like sex since the fourth month of Castiel’s pregnancy. It’s been a very long time, and Castiel looks like he’s amazed he’s managed to wait this long. “Want you,” he nods. He pulls off his clothes and Dean covers the space between them in a couple of short steps and soon he’s all over Castiel’s body.

_Oh dear lord, his body._

It’s a different body, now. The flesh of his belly is a little looser than it was before, but he is tight and hard with muscle in a way he wasn’t before. Carpentry and running and biking has made him strong and buff- a little wiry, though. His skin is pale under his clothes, dark where sun hits his taught biceps and broad, beautiful face.

 _Beautiful_. So very beautiful.

Dean growls in his throat and Castiel moans.

His kisses are hard and sloppy, some of them accompanied by a playful little nip. Castiel wants this as much as Dean does.

They are both clumsy get their pants and underwear off, and once that impediment has disappeared, they fall back onto the makeshift nest but four or five steps away. Castiel bucks and squirms underneath Dean, and he presents his neck.

Dean pants heavily and latches hard down upon that space between his neck and shoulder, bites and sucks and kisses and bites until Castiel cries out, “Please! Please, yes!”

Dean smiles into the bite.

He is always terrified and worried by how possessive he feels in these moments. He’s looked it up, and it has something to do with alpha hormones and the adrenaline that’s released during a rut, but it’s still scary as _hell_. He knows vaguely that later, he will sit down and have a long breath and make sure he gives Castiel his space, but for now he just fights the urge to growl _mine_ into Castiel’s ear.

Dean releases and Castiel sighs deeply. He wriggles upward a little and kisses at Dean’s face and mouth  eagerly. He whimpers and says, “Please. Fuck me. Been so long, puppy, been so long.”

Dean moves down and Castiel spreads his legs as far apart as he can. Dean can barely see that glisten- that shine of Castiel’s slick and his eyes roll back in his head with pleasure, with excitement, with desire. The smell of him is simply insane. It smells like everything Dean has ever wanted, everything he could ever need. Like sugar and fruit and heat and safety. Like an apple pie on a windowsill.

He helps Castiel position so that his hips and legs are spread wide as he can, and then Dean fucks into him. He moans and growls and howls as he sinks into that tight heat, and Castiel cries aloud.

“Yes!” he shouts. “Dean!”

Dean’s hand manages to find Castiel’s cock and he jacks it along with his rhythm inside of Castiel. Castiel goes wordless under him, just sucking in air as he drowns in the smell between them.

Dean comes moments after Castiel, and they lay there, sticky and satisfied and panting and _whole_ , deliciously whole for the rest of the afternoon.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The bed comes along well, and by the end of the week, they’re ready for the huge king mattress that’s been on order for nearly a year now.

The nest, once completed, is beautiful. The wood is red and brown. The posts stand high into the air and the headboard is huge and thick. The shape of it is organic and shining and warm.The bedroom still smells like the varnish, but the smell of its fragrant wood remains. A perfume. The mattress is thick, the blankets are heavy, and Dean is so happy to see the nest there and real and secure that he throws his hands over Castiel and pulls him into the bed with him. Castiel laughs and kicks his legs in the air as he is tipped into the bed.

“You animal!” he laughs. “What will I ever do with you?”

Dean gnaws and kisses playfully at Castiel’s neck. “You’ll stay here with me!” he roars playfully. “The bed is simply too plush! We can’t get out!”

“Oh what a world!” Castiel cries. “What a world!”

“Wizard of Oz?” Dean asks.

“It was my favorite as a kid,” Castiel answers, panting, tangled in the quilt. “I liked the scene with the tornado.”

Dean smiles. “That’s adorable,” he answers. He grew up too close to tornados to be enchanted by them, but there’s something amazing about imagining Cas as a kid, watching the television closely, eyes wide. “What were you like as a kid?” Dean asks.

Castiel shrugs. “Weird,” he answers. “I was probably about fifty years behind on pop culture, at least. Read whatever was cheapest at used bookstores, which was always either old or a murder mystery. The school library showed it one night, before I presented clearly as omega and had to leave.”

Dean runs his fingers into Castiel’s hair and scratches his scalp. “Do you want to go back?” he asks. “To school?”

Castiel shakes his head. “Maybe a few years ago, but not now,” he says. “It’d be weird. I’d be too old.”

“You’re not too old,” Dean says. “To me, you’re forever young.”

Castiel turns so that he lays on top of Dean, his chin resting in his ribcage. “You’re too good to me,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Dean smiles at him.

“Actually,” Castiel says, “I’ve been thinking about...about what happened.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

Castiel sits up, cross-legged. “I want to try for another baby.”

Dean sits up too and looks at him, blankly. “You...you want to try for another?”

Castiel nods, solemnly. “I do.”

Dean looks down at the bed and at his hands and then back up at Castiel. “But...why?”

He looks at Dean, and his hands gravitate back towards his belly and rest there.

Thoughtful.  “Because I still want a pup,” he answers. “And I feel like I’ve failed you. And I know that’s- that’s not fair to me or to you, but it’s important that I do this.”

Dean closes his eyes. He feels like he’s swallowed something sour. “Cas, it wouldn’t just be you doing this. What if we lost it again?” Dean swallows again, like choking. “What if I lost you?”

Castiel nods. “I know,” he says. “I know. But this wouldn’t be like last time. I’d want to work with a doctor more closely. Honestly, we’d probably have to, to get pregnant at all. You’d also be here, now. It would be far less stress. I mean, it would still be risky and scary, but it would be different.”

Dean bites his lip. “I don’t want to do this because you think you’ve failed me somehow. I want to do this because you want a baby, and because I want a baby. I want to do this because we want it, on our terms. Not because you feel guilty.”

Castiel nods and his hands nervously rub over his stomach. Over and over again. Anxious. “I just- Dean our house is so empty. I wanted this house to be so full and it feels empty.”

Dean nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Castiel smiles at him and leans forward on the bed. Kisses Dean.

It’s tender and short. It’s terribly romantic. It’s a first kiss. Naive. Gentle.

Hopeful.

 


End file.
